Daughter of My People: Jesus' Jerusalem destroyed

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Rome

A.D. 68

One revolt at Gallia Lugdunensis (north of France) against the mad emperor's tax policies. They were really tired of them. The revolt was led by Gaius Julius Vindex, its governor.

That was three months ago, in March. Nero had to order Lucius Verginius Rufus, governor of Germania Superior, which is east of the rebelling province, to put down Vindex's rebellion.

Wanting more support from outside his own province, Vindex called the governor of Hispanic Tarraconensis (most of Spain) to join him in his rebellion. He also wanted Galba, governor of said province, to declare himself the new emperor.

Lucius Verginius Rufus won at the Battle of Vesontio, a month or so ago, in May.

Gains Julius Vindex, seeing all is lost, would not get killed. He instead killed himself.

+

Nero retained at least some control, and he officially declared Galba a public enemy. However, support for Galba increased, and even the prefect of Nero's Praetorian Guard diverted over to Galba.

Nero soon receives the report: Galba is truly on his way to Rome with an army. People are brazenly on the side of Galba. Some even call for the deaths of Nero and his followers.

Terrified, Nero starts to flee from Rome. He asks some officials to prepare a boat for him when he gets to Ostia, a large port. But some decline. "Is it such a dreadful thing to die?" they ask.

But what should Nero do now? He contemplates bolting to Parthia, another empire east of the Roman. Maybe he should do this, or maybe that. He could surrender to Galba. He might as well plead to the people, and ask that at least he can be the prefect of Egypt.

What is Nero going to do?

What can Nero do?

Nero returns to Rome. He goes to his new palace, the Domus Aurea, to spend the evening. He is worried enough. He only rests until midnight. Then the thirty-two-year-old emperor of the whole Roman Empire sees that his palace guard is gone.

He gets no replies when he calls them. He groans tensely and frozen. He goes into their chambers. All of them—empty.

He requests for someone, anybody, to just kill him already! No one. No one at all.

Nero shrieks in pain, "I have no friend or enemy?" He runs out in a crazed manner. He wants to fling himself into the Tiber river.

He quickly changes his mind. He believes drowning is not the way to go. He stops and asks someone to take him somewhere, where he could disappear. Phaon offered his villa, only 4 miles outside of Rome.

Nero puts on different raiment. Oh, how he enjoyed disguising. But now this is for a new reason! Nero goes with Phaon and three other loyal men, including Sporus, his homosexual "wife".

Arriving, Nero orders these four men to prepare him a grave.

Then he receives news from a courier that the Senate had just judged and declared Nero a public enemy, and that soldiers will soon come to take him to the Roman Forum, in order to eliminate him there. Actually, the Senate is reluctant to do any of this, since Nero is the last of the Julio-Claudian family, and that his death would mean civil war on who will be the new emperor. They actually scheme in his favor, that he would return to the Senate and they work out a way that a future heir to this dynasty can be made.

But Nero does not know this. He only hears the statement from the courier.

It is now June 9. Nero recollects that it was on his date that his wife Octavia died. He has a feeling he will also die on this date. But he does not want to go into the Forum. He fears he might end up like Julius Caesar.

Everyone knows what happened on the Ides of March a little over a century ago. Julius Caesar was surrounded as he was seated in the Forum, and he was stabbed by the senators, many of them his friends. He had been betrayed! He finally dropped on the floor and met his bloody end.

Nero would rather kill himself![42]

He trods up and down the villa, also watching for when the soldiers would arrive. As he shakes, he felt his criminal conscience. He was a corrupted emperor, after all. He recalls his abuses. He was inventive in his arts of violence. Now he bellows in Latin, "What an artist dies in me!"

Positively worried, he tries to stab himself. But it isn't fatal.

Nero couldn't believe he could not kill himself. He tries to get one of those few with him to kill himself first. But suddenly comes the sound of horsemen, louder and louder by the second.

Nero knows who they are—Roman soldiers—but not what they're here for (to restore Nero to the Senate safely, not to have him tortured, but to try to work something out), so he figures he should just die already! But he loses the nerve to do even this!

The emperor of the whole Roman Empire could not kill himself.

Finally, the last surviving person in the Julio-Claudian dynasty turns to his private secretary—one of the four—and asks him to stab him to death. Make it fatal!

Epaphroditos shakes. He had three years ago revealed to Nero a conspiracy to restore the Roman Republic; this was treason that got punished. Now would he kill the man whose life he had saved?

But he finally takes the sword and pierces it through the emperor. Just then, one of the horsemen bursts into the villa. Seeing Nero at the point of death, he runs over to try to rescue the tyrant's life. But he couldn't stop the bleeding. Nero says, "Too late!"

Now he's choking blood from the truly fatal bruise. He now emits his final words before he collapses on the floor:

"This is fidelity!"

Nero is dead.

+

Nero is the first Roman emperor to end his own life, although it is aided self-murder.

The Senate proceed to hold the dead tyrant as an "enemy of the state" anyway. This is obviously supposed to appease Galba, who just arrived at the head of a legion. Now the Senate of Rome proclaims Galba the new emperor of the Roman Empire. And he would prepare coins to honor Vindex. And why not? He owes his position as emperor to him.

While many, not limited to the Senators, the nobility, and the upper class welcome the death of Nero with rejoicing, some are upset, including the lower-class and those supported by Nero's famous overruns. Those in the military have mixed feelings. They had given their loyalty to Nero. Alas, bribery!

But now, in some monuments, Nero's name gets erased. Portraits of Nero are changed, and people allied to Nero get slain, especially if ordered by the new emperor.

And there's this widespread belief, mostly in the eastern Roman Empire, that Nero really had not died and that he will come back in some way. One says Nero did flee to Parthia, and is getting an army, and would return to destroy Rome. To top this off, there will be a Pseudo-Nero (or Nero imposter)!

But the bald emperor is making mistakes. Galba is doing things as emperor that enrage people. He cancels all of Nero's reforms—even the good ones! Senators get executed without a trial; thus Galba is defying Roman law and their rights as Roman citizens. And Galba wouldn't pay the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard.

[42] Caligula, a former Roman emperor, was similarly assassinated. His final words were said to be, "I'm still alive!"